


Qualifications

by speccygeekgrrl



Series: speccygeekgrrl's 2014 Kink Bingo fills [6]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Boss/Employee Relationship, Devotion, F/M, Queening, kink bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 04:22:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1765309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speccygeekgrrl/pseuds/speccygeekgrrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All of her operatives have certain traits in common. Only one of them displays devotion, though, and something so rare and unexpected shouldn't go unrewarded.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Qualifications

**Author's Note:**

> This story happened because of two things. One of them was a certain square on my kink bingo card (queening). The other was an entry on TVTropes about Hersh that said "Undying Loyalty: He is to Control what Reese is to Finch." And I went OH WAIT A SECOND I CAN WORK WITH THAT. This is also a way for me to work through the fact that in the span of two days of marathoning POI I went from feeling lukewarm about Hersh to actively mourning him. Goddammit where did these feels come from, I don't want them, take these feels away and bring me better feels. (better feels = porn? this is how my mind works...) 
> 
> It's so, so weird to write about a character without a known name. Really weird. But there's only one woman in the story, so pronouns work fine. It's just odd to me.

It's neither a coincidence nor an example of narcissism that the qualities she finds most admirable are ones she herself embodies. Why shouldn't she strive to be her own ideal, after all? And why not make use of individuals who display the traits she has worked so hard to instill in herself?

Competence, first and foremost. She has no time at all for incompetent people. Unfortunately, she has to deal with them; fortunately, she has highly competent people to whom she can delegate handling most of the incompetent ones.

Intelligence, of course, but that's a given when "Intelligence" is right there in the agency name. No such thing as a stupid spy, the dumb ones don't live long enough to catch her notice. Not just intelligence, but prudence, the wisdom to know what to do with the information they're gathering.

Loyalty, that's an important one. Loyalty to the country they're protecting. Loyalty to the Program. The kind of loyal that will do terrible things because of loyalty, because they are necessary. The kind of loyal that overrides conventional morality, that recognizes the need to do things that are illegal, appalling, things that are for the greater good, things that need to be scoured away and forgotten by everyone, everyone except her and the finger on the trigger.

She expected loyalty from Hersh. He'd proven his loyalty to the Program, time and time again, working under Special Counsel. He knew what needed to be done, and he did it, and did it well, and did it invisibly, silently, efficiently. He was a good asset-- he was the best asset she had at her disposal-- and it seemed that he was charmed, as many near-fatal injuries he had managed to survive. She sent him into bad situations, and he came back out of them, wounded but alive, usually successful. Yes, he was loyal, would do whatever she asked of him, without question.

Devotion, however... that was rare indeed, and unexpected. She'd never have thought any of her assets would see her as anything but the source of their orders, and still, there he was, endlessly faithful, always ready to do her bidding, stoic and quiet and unsmiling and utterly hers. She could hear it sometimes, never in the field but occasionally in her office, in the way he called her "Ma'am," the weight of the word ever so slightly different in those times, some note in his voice reverberating at the same frequency as his rare moments of incredibly dry humor. He was hers, with no expectation that she was his as well, and yet... and yet.

In the days after the disappearance of the Samaritan drives, she called him back to D.C. Still recovering from the explosion of the Vigilance suicide grenadier, he was useless in the field, as conspicuously burned as he was, but he was as good a handler as he was an asset, and two sets of eyes on the problems on her desk now were preferable to only her own. It was a pleasure to work beside him, not at the other end of a secure line but on the other side of her desk, near enough that she could smell the burn cream on his reddened skin, near enough to catch the microexpressions passing over his face as he read the files, the tiny twitches of displeasure or approval that would have gone unnoticed by any casual observer but that seemed so obvious to her. The details he brought to her attention were mostly things she had noticed, but his perspective was valuable, his insights keen, and the single joke he slipped in to their morning's work had her biting her lips against a laugh.

She had meetings all afternoon. It was sheer impulse that drove her to invite him to lunch with her, the simple and irrepressible desire to spend twenty minutes with him talking about things that had nothing to do with national security. In the privacy of her office, all they talked about was the Program. Outside of her office, that was the one thing they couldn't speak of, and yet there was no shortage of things to say, about anything in the world besides what mattered most to both of them.

He held every door for her, with a quiet, "Ma'am," pulled out her chair for her in the cafeteria, fetched her another cup of coffee when she drained her first, and every time there was that timbre to his voice that made her recognize his devotion. She wondered what he could discern from her voice from her soft but entirely meant, "Thank you, Hersh."

The next day was much like the one that preceded it, except this time her meetings were in the morning and her time in her office with Hersh came in the afternoon. Another number came in overnight, and each of them worked a separate angle to get more information about the situation before deciding which team to send in to deal with the threat, every so often passing folders or a tablet to each other to get a second opinion on some slight anomaly in the info. By the time she gave the orders for the Indigo team that had made their way to Seattle to take action, it was nearly dark out. She locked the files away in her desk, put the tablet without all the sensitive information into her purse, and rose from her seat.

For a moment she stood by the window, looking out, and when she turned she was unsurprised to find Hersh watching her, not only because a good spy knows when someone's looking at her, but because he looked expectant-- waiting for orders. She didn't have an order to give him, only a question.

"Will you come home with me tonight?" She lifted a finger to pause him before he could answer. "You can say yes or no, but I won't make the offer twice." He blinked at her, the only hint of how taken aback he was by her words, and sat up a little straighter as he reviewed the question in his mind-- was this a test? a genuine offer? what was she really asking here? She knew the moment he made his decision, the way he pressed his lips together in the instant before he stood up.

"Yes, Ma'am," he said, and she gave him a tight, pleased smile. He looked cautious, and that was good too, that he trusted her but not blindly. He got to the coat rack before she did, held her coat to let her slip into it almost like a real gentleman, and his hands on her shoulders, however briefly, just made her more sure that she was making the right call. He would do anything she asked of him, and that kind of devotion deserved to be acknowledged, to have something asked that perhaps he wanted to do already. Maybe he didn't, maybe it would be too much to ask. But she was almost sure that whatever happened behind the locked door of her apartment, he would take as a gift, and that's how she intended it-- a treat for both of them, just once, something they could savor.

The Pentagon was her domain, but stepping out of it into the crisp air was a relief. She didn't take work home with her-- pretty much everything she did being the highest level of classified-- and yet here she was, taking a vital element of her work home, but not for any reason to do with their jobs. She trusted his watchfulness while she drove them out of D.C. and into Virginia. She never felt safer than when she knew he was guarding her, and even though they were only going to her apartment and not into a tense situation, that feeling of safety lingered, weighty and reassuring.

"Welcome to my home," she said as she unlocked the door and let him in. He went in the way a good agent should, wary, visually clearing the room, checking for exits and weak spots. The curtains were drawn; he twitched one aside and looked out into the air around the 27th floor apartment. He relaxed slightly, broad shoulders losing that tenseness that signaled readiness for immediate action, and she couldn't keep a slight smile off her face as she hung up her coat and went into the kitchen. "Would you like a drink?"

"I'll have what you're having," he said, and her smile widened for a second. 

"You can sit down, if you want." He didn't; he stood in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, watching her as she poured two glasses of iced tea-- oh, she thought, did he think she might be trying to retire him? It wasn't an unreasonable precaution to take, making sure his drink was untainted, but no, she couldn't imagine taking him out of the field for good, he was too skilled and too vital to kill off like a lesser, more unacceptably nosy agent. But if she ever had to do it, she would do it herself. He deserved that much. Setting aside the fact that even the thought of it struck her as entirely and thoroughly wrong. Anyways, she certainly wouldn't take him out in the place where she lived. She held out both glasses and let him pick the one he wanted, and then wet her unexpectedly dry mouth. 

"Thanks, Ma'am." She led him back into the living room and sat on the couch, and his glance flicked over to the armchair before he settled down at the other end of the couch. Oh, good, he was catching on. She toed off her sensible pumps and hid a smile behind her glass when his gaze lingered on her stocking feet. "Ma'am... what are we doing here?" he asked, soft as ever, always the good agent, requesting clarification before proceeding. 

"Something I've been thinking about for a while," she said, amused when his head tilted slightly. "I've wondered what it would be like to take you to bed."

"You have?" She dissected his tone: primarily surprise, a bit of disbelief, and more than a touch of pleasure. "Isn't that unprofessional?" he asked, and there it was, that desert-dry humor peeking out.

"Are you going to sue me for sexual harassment, Hersh?" She smirked when he shook his head no. "I didn't think so. It's... unusual, certainly. You're the only one I wonder about, if that makes it any less unprofessional. You're meticulous, observant, incredibly skilled at difficult tasks... and you're loyal to the bone. To the Program, and to me. You've got all the qualifications I look for in a lover."

He was a spy, a trained operative of the highest order, stoic and unflappable and in control of himself-- but that was a definite flush in his unburned cheek at the word "lover." She felt warmth gathering in her chest, a swell of something like affection, something she didn't allow herself to feel 99 percent of the time, but she let herself feel it now. "What do you think?" she prompted when he held his silence.

"This is unexpected," he said, prevaricating slightly, looking down at his glass. "I'm not sure it's wise. I'm almost certain it's unwise." When he looked over at her, his eyes were very, very blue, and there was that devotion, written clear as a newspaper headline. "And despite that, I still want to see what happens." 

"I hoped you'd say that," she said, pleased, and set her glass down on the coffee table before closing the distance between them and leaning in to kiss the closer corner of his lips. He went still for a moment, and then all at once he turned and got his arms around her and kissed her back properly, and she could have laughed in relief but instead she leaned into him, tasting the sweetness of the tea and feeling the heat radiating from his burned cheek on her own skin, unnatural warmth reminding her that they wouldn't be here if he wasn't wounded, that this wouldn't be happening if he hadn't failed his last mission. That if things had gone as they should have, he'd still be out in the field, and not here with his big hands splayed across her back pulling her even closer. Perhaps it was consolation for them both. Not a reward after all, but something to take their minds off the unknown repercussions of that botched mission for a couple of hours. 

Whatever it was, it was happening now, and she was going to enjoy herself in the moment and pick apart the layers of why at some later date. He kissed her like he meant it, single-mindedly, and it was only right that she put as much focus into it instead of letting her mind wander into anything more complicated than how this felt, how good it felt. She laid a hand on the uninjured side of his face and took control of the kiss with a bite to his lip, pleased beyond words when he yielded with a tiny gasp and let her do what she liked. His hands stroked her back, and she was acutely aware that he was lethal, that he had in fact broken at least one person's back, but he was touching her with care. It was thrilling, really. They were both deadly creatures, turning hands that knew all too well the business of killing instead to the leisurely pursuit of pleasure.

Kissing on the couch wasn't where she wanted to be. He looked up at her when she stood, and she tipped her head toward the hallway to her bedroom. "Come on." He moved silently until the bedroom door closed behind them with a click, and she turned already undoing the buttons of her blouse. His hands came up and stilled hers.

"Wait... let me," he said, and from the look on his face as he proceeded to unbutton her, there was no doubt left in her mind that he'd thought about this too. He palmed one breast through her plain cotton bra before he slid the shirt off her shoulders and lowered his head to kiss a shoulder. She pushed him back gently with both hands spread out against his chest, smirking with anticipation.

"Take your clothes off, Hersh." It was a command, and he obeyed swiftly, toeing out of his shoes, leaving his suit jacket folded over on her dresser, letting the rest of his clothes puddle on the floor. She knew how many times he'd been injured, had read his file, the individual reports, but actually seeing the scars littered across his skin was a different story entirely. Bullet wounds, the long lines of knife slashes, some wounds that had healed messily, leaving jagged scars, and some that had healed cleanly, leaving neat pink lines behind. She reached out to touch the scar left from when Reese nearly killed him, low on his belly, running her fingers over it thoughtfully while he held very still. Strange, that he was still here from an act of dubious mercy. His luck would run out some day, but it hadn't yet, and for that she was grateful. She moved lower, took him in hand and stroked a couple of times, pleased that he was big all over, not just tall and broad and with large hands. 

"Ma'am... please." She looked up at him, brows raised, tacit permission, and let those big hands continue undressing her, unzipping her skirt and letting it fall, unhooking her bra and drawing it away. He filled his hands with her heavy breasts, bent to take a nipple in his mouth, kept going down, all the way to his knees, to start peeling her pantyhose down her thighs. She liked to see him down there, wanted him under her in a half-dozen other ways, all of them clamoring in her mind to be the first to try. She ran a hand through his hair, nails dragging lightly over his scalp, and he let his head rest against her stomach, kissing just under her navel, trailing more kisses lower. His cheek was a little scratchy with stubble; it felt good against her skin, rough and real and grounding her in the moment. She stepped out of her hose, felt his hands traveling up the backs of her legs until he squeezed her ass and hooked his fingers in her panties to draw those down as well. He sat back on his heels to look up at her as he divested her of that last piece of clothing, and she smiled down at him, so pleased, beyond turned on by his obedience and his care.

"Lie down flat on the bed," she told him, and he put his hands on her waist as he got to his feet, smoothed them down over her hips, appreciating her shape. The bed was the most luxurious thing in the whole apartment, ridiculously big for just one woman, perfectly supportive, soft sheets in hunter green underneath a camel-colored comforter that he was thoughtful enough to shove off the bed as he followed her command. She ran a possessive hand over his chest, ruffling the dark hair there, followed the line of one broad shoulder to his strong arm. Part of her wondering had been what he looked like under those suits, and she found reality to be superior to her imagination-- she could see the leashed power under his skin, the muscle tone of a man who wasn't out to impress anyone, just to do what he did with maximum efficiency. He was a little soft around the middle-- getting old, same as her, rare enough in their profession. He watched her curiously, patiently, as she looked her fill, touching him almost proprietorially. "What do you want?" It felt important to ask.

"Anything," he answered immediately, "Whatever you like, Ma'am. I want to touch you." 

"So touch me," she said, joining him on the bed and prowling over him like a lioness, pinning his shoulders down and straddling his chest. "Go ahead. Go wild." She expected his hands on her breasts, or her thighs, or between her thighs. She didn't expect him to grab her ass and pull her even higher, to lean up and lick at her almost delicately at first before burying his face in her muff with a groan, taking her weight on his hands kneading at her ample rear as he did exactly what she told him to do and went wild. "Oh my god," she said, startled, and then again, more husky, "oh, my god." He had a clever mouth, a quick tongue, keenly honed senses attuned to figuring out what she liked and doing more of that-- long slow licks, little flickers, and the way she moaned when he pressed his tongue in was a dead giveaway, one he exploited ruthlessly to get her to moan like that again, and again. 

She watched him working on her, his eyes closed almost meditatively, hair going more and more rumpled every time she clutched at him, face flushed, and it was almost a surprise how quickly he made her come, how thoroughly he undid her in what seemed like very little time at all. She was panting when she sat back on his chest, a little bit shivery with how good that was, and he just smirked at her, licked his lips, and stroked her hips until the shivers died down. 

"That skill set is definitely not mentioned in your file," she quipped, and he grinned.

"Have to keep a couple secrets for myself, don't I? Not like that comes up often in serving my country." She was seriously reconsidering the whole not-making-the-offer-twice thing she'd said earlier. She shifted back until she bumped up against his erection and reached down to take him in hand. "Uh, Ma'am, don't we need--"

"You can't get me pregnant," she said, amused, "and I know you're clean. Unless you're still really worried...? No, I thought not."

“Can you blame me for being cautious?” he said, and then he wasn’t saying much of anything as she lined up and sank down around him, just gasping, holding her hips to keep her still until it was a little less overwhelming a sensation. She spread her palms out on his chest, rolled her hips until he started working with her, thrusting up into her, and she looked down and thought about how at this moment he was hers, completely, body and soul, and he looked up and thought more or less the same thing, and both of them reveled in the thought as they moved together.

She could feel the power in him now, the way his muscles moved under the skin, the flexing of his thighs and the tension in his arms, the pressure of each fingertip as he guided her motion atop him. He was fierce, singleminded, striving toward completion, and she leaned down and urged him on and said his name, his real name, not an alias, not even the familiar alias he used with her, but the name that only a handful of people knew and none of them spoke any more. His eyes widened for an instant before they squeezed shut. His steady rhythm went erratic, and he clutched her tighter as that quiet identification shook him to the core-- _yes, here you are, I know you, you’re mine_ all wrapped up in the sound of his name, unmooring the last ropes of his self-control and giving himself over in his entirety to Control.


End file.
